better, even
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: The intact landscape was drawn in colored pencil, but it's moot to try and make out the details because a deliberate splotch of acrylic blackness eclipses the majority of the paper. Kimolette. Crap. Vapid, yellow crap.


**Author's Note: Uh...Well. Well then. This is something. Crap. Dull, plodding, useless, disjointed, aimless, flaky crap. Yellow flavor, I think. And um...Huh. I don't know. Blame it on my stagnancy.**

 **Title is from A Softer World.**

* * *

Kim doesn't actually expect Violette to open the door, so when she does she is immediately at a loss.

Dull smoke clouds travel her up and down and dock at her face, dry lips pressing together.

"Hi," Kim says finally.

Violette opens the door wide enough to allow her entrance and steps back, flopping bonelessly to her mattress. She's dressed in rumpled pajamas, slightly puffed loose shorts and a matching tank-top. One strap slides down her shoulder and a few stains from some food or another dry on the white fabric, which relieves Kim in a way because that means Violette has eaten, at least.

"How are you?" she asks, softly closing the door behind her.

Violette lazily sweeps her hand from one side of the room to the other and Kim winces. All the knickknacks on her dresser have been knocked over, shards of ceramic and glass littering the mahogany surface. Posters have been torn from the walls, leaving tacks and scraps behind. Broken pencils and other art supplies are carelessly strewn across the carpet.

On Violette's desk there is one intact landscape resting on a tomb of crinkled up pictures and punctured canvases. The intact landscape was drawn in colored pencil, but it's moot to try and make out the details because a deliberate splotch of acrylic blackness eclipses the majority of the paper.

"Yeah..." Kim leans her head back against the door and meets Violette's hollow gaze. "I miss you."

"I miss my mom," she replies.

"I know." Kim's heart twinges, her belly full of bricks. "She was a wonderful woman."

Violette exhales shadows and picks herself up, beckoning to Kim with one tired finger. "Come here."

Kim tiptoes around the mess of art supplies and sits down on the bed. Her heart jolts when Violette's lips smash to her in the next moment. Violette's tongue steals Kim's gasp of surprise as she grabs her hand and crams it down her pajama shorts. Violette isn't wearing underwear and alarm flashes through Kim, her eyes snapping open like lime umbrellas.

She jerks back, head reeling. "V-Violette!?"

Violette leans forward on her hands and knees, messy amethyst tresses tossed over one shoulder and eyes wavering. "What? What, don't you want to? You like me, right?"

"No! I mean, yes, but," Kim flounders awkwardly. "But I don't want to do that. Not now, not like this...Do you?"

"I _don't_ want to think anymore," Violette murmurs in ashes and acid rain. "I'm empty, Kim. I'm so tired of crying and none of it's gonna bring her back."

Kim tentatively wraps her arms around her. She can't fill the void, not like that and not like this, and she can't soften the blow that birthed it, but maybe she can offer some support against its weight.

"I know. I know and I'm sorry."

Violette sits up on her knees and presses herself into Kim, breath puffed from plaster-cracked lips all warm and wet against her neck. Kim traces circles into her trembling back and promises her presence; it's all she has to give.

"I should take a shower," Violette mumbles after some time between seconds and centuries drifts between them.

"Yeah," Kim agrees and kisses the top of her greasy head. "Yeah, you should. And change your clothes."

"Not just yet." Violette unravels from her grasp and spills onto the bed once more. "Will you stay with me?"

"Mhm." Kim lies down alongside her and finds her hand, holds it like she's holding the world. "Do you want to talk about her?"

"I don't want to talk about anything," Violette turns to her, smokey depths somber. "Will you stay with me anyway?"

"I'll stay all night if you want me to."

Violette's fingers thread through hers and squeeze tight.


End file.
